From the BBC today:
The power of the mind has been overestimated when it comes to fighting cancer, US scientists say.
They said they found that a patient’s positive or negative emotional state had no direct bearing on cancer survival or disease progression.
The University of Pennsylvania team followed more than 1,000 patients with head and neck cancer.
But experts said the Cancer journal study should not deter people from adopting a “fighting spirit”.
Indeed, a positive outlook can help patients cope with gruelling cancer therapies and resume a “normal” life, a spokeswoman for Macmillan Cancer Support said.
Seeking emotional support may be beneficial to cancer patients, said the researchers.
Lead author Dr James Coyne said: “If cancer patients want psychotherapy or to be in a support group, they should be given the opportunity. There can be lots of emotional and social benefits.
“But they should not seek such experiences solely on the expectation that they are extending their lives.
“The hope that we can fight cancer by influencing emotional states appears to have been misplaced.”
‘Reassuring’ finding
In the study, a patient’s emotional status had no bearing on survival, regardless of gender, tumour site or disease stage.
Julia Frater, of Cancer Research UK, said: “People with cancer can feel under pressure to cope well with their disease and treatment and to stay on top of things. They are often urged to feel positive.
“These results should reassure them that if they don’t feel like this, it’s okay. Many people do feel worried or low following a diagnosis and this isn’t likely to affect the outcome of their treatment.”
Professor Jane Maher, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said although there was no good evidence that emotion had an impact on the cancer itself, a patient’s mental outlook would have a bearing on their long-term outcomes.
“More and more people are surviving with cancer. And that survival will be affected by their emotions.
“For example, depression and anxiety can make it less likely that they are going to get back to a normal, healthy life.”
9 users commented in " Optimism has no bearing on Cancer. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackDo you believe this?
Hi Sheepworrier. I think they have applied the scientific method - to ask the question whether optimism an impact on recovery rates and disease progression - and they found that it had no bearing. It seems slightly depressing, but perhaps not surprising. Mental state probably doesn’t have a whole lot of impact on cells that are replicating out of control.
Hi. I’ll defer to your greater knowledge on the subject, but it would take a lot more studies to convince me that the mind does not have an integral part in healing the body.
Optimism, positive attitude, the power of the mind - whatever you want to call it, has in many cases confounded medical knowledge by apparently curing terminal illnesses - creating a focus for the body’s defences to react against. Lance Armstrong being one such example.
“Mental state probably doesn’t have a whole lot of impact on cells that are replicating out of control.”
I agree with this, on a physical level. But I also believe that a person who does not succumb easily will have a better quality of life before he goes than one who descends into depression. When you give up everything shifts, your fear eats you alive, you fade faster and your pain is always on the surface. I think you can be accepting of your fate and still fight for every last drop of your life. I’ve seen it first hand, and it matters.
Hi FMC and SW. Depression can have a strong negative affect on your immune system and it is your immune system that patrols the body, getting rid of cancer cells, however in this study it seems that the progression rates for optimists versus pessimistic people is approximately the same.
Quality of life is, of course, a different issue and optimists will generally have the higher quality of life.
I would worry, SW, that even though Lance Armstrong is a great example of somebody who overcame very adverse odds, for every Lance Armstrong, there is somebody else that didn’t. That makes me sound negative, although I don’t want to.
Studies like this one are useful as they seek to identify what the most important contributors to recovery might be. Therefore, they studied optimism because it is often considered to be important for recovery from cancer. However, if optimism is not a strong factor in curing cancer, then a patient who decides they will decline a particular treatment, because they will chose optimism instead, might be badly advised. That, I think, is the purpose of the study.
Can you imagine if optimism came out as being a strong influence in curing cancer? Now THAT would be big news.
Honestly, I would have to look at the numbers and there might be other studies on this (1,000 sounds like a small sample size), but these studies are important as they test various factors and help us move forward on the most promising ones.
Hi Doc - I would never condone ignoring proven medical advice and treatments in favour of optimism, but i do think it has a large part to play.
I admit that the Lance Armstrongs of our world are a rarity, but it does seem to give some credence to the mind over matter theory.
Also, we aren’t told how optimistic these test subjects are - is there a scale? Are they determined that they will beat the cancer or are they just not letting it affect their day-to-day lives?
Indeed, you speak the truth. You would wonder if you took two partial cohorts - the most optimistic and the most pessimistic, would the statistics be different.
One Lance Armstrong does not make a statistics. Especially since ihe may have had a completely different kind of support (if not treatment) than the ‘normal’ patients receive.
It would have been nicer to discover that a fighting attitude would improve your chances of survival, although it does sounds to me a bit contraddictory: I am no doctor of medicine but, as far as I know, a fighting state of mind is equivalent to ’stress’ which usually depresses the immune system. Am I right?
Certainly depression and stress are not good for you physically. I don’t know anything about the relationship between a fighting state of mind and stress, I’m afraid.